Here’s another accident in which the belayer did not use a Grigri properly. The climber was dropped , fractured an ankle bone but hit the belayer’s dog killing the dog.

I only got part of the way through this long thread, but it appears that the most likely cause of the accident was the belayer giving slack and having her hand off the brake end of the rope when the climber fell.

condolences to the owners of the dog, that's pretty sad. hope everyone recovers from this.

toad857 posted this:

In reply to:

The accident: The climber moved past the kneebar on reliquary. As he did so, rope was pulled upward with him. The belayer, at this moment, felt a tug on the rope and held down the cam to pay out some slack. At this exact moment the climber, pumped, casually let go and fell without advertisement. Gravity is always there, and is quicker than all of us. By the time she was able to react (i.e., let go of the cam), it was too late to prevent the collision. Belay error was the critical factor in this fall--it could have been prevented with a foolproof technique (that is, do not allow the brake hand to leave the brake rope ever).

It seems that the mistake may not have ocurred with another device where taking one's hand off the brake strand is obviously a really bad thing. I believe there are still people who still lead belay with a grigri by taking their hand off the brake strand to feed out rope.

Wow. My favorite part of the linked thread is the dude that is defending her, that says he dropped his sister too. But we're a safe bunch of climbers. Sure you are. Evidently the guy that was dropped had dropped someone a couple years ago too. If you have 3 dropping "accidents" in a couple of years among your climbing group, find a different bunch to climb with. Unbelievable.

Not a direct reply to Social-climber, just the information in his post.

Sorry about the dog but . . . Seriously! When will people learn that a "break assist device" ie Grigri is no substitute for proper belay skills? I'm not going to be naive and say this wouldn't have happened with an ATC or similar, because this group of climbers clearly does not have the collective intelligence to properly use their equipment.

Some people "crusade against the cult of the tricam", but I think I'm going to start the crusade against Gumbies with Grigris. Nice, it even rhymes.

***disclaimer*** The Grigri is a wonderful device in the hands of a well trained belayer.

Not a direct reply to Social-climber, just the information in his post.

Sorry about the dog but . . . Seriously! When will people learn that a "break assist device" ie Grigri is no substitute for proper belay skills? I'm not going to be naive and say this wouldn't have happened with an ATC or similar, because this group of climbers clearly does not have the collective intelligence to properly use their equipment.

Some people "crusade against the cult of the tricam", but I think I'm going to start the crusade against Gumbies with Grigris. Nice, it even rhymes.

***disclaimer*** The Grigri is a wonderful device in the hands of a well trained belayer.

Wow. My favorite part of the linked thread is the dude that is defending her, that says he dropped his sister too. But we're a safe bunch of climbers. Sure you are. Evidently the guy that was dropped had dropped someone a couple years ago too. If you have 3 dropping "accidents" in a couple of years among your climbing group, find a different bunch to climb with.sport. Unbelievable.

That thread is scarily full of incompetence that puts rockclimbing.com to shame. I don't want to go climbing at red river.

"Lets not make this personal, but I do want to learn from this. I have never seen anybody use the technique shown here by Petzl. I'll give it a try tomorrow at the gym.

Right or wrong - most everybody using a gri-gri takes their hand off the brake to feed slack. I can use a gri-gri just like an ATC to slowly feed out rope. I can also loop a few feet of rope and hold the cam with my thumb while keeping my index fingers on the rope - I can feed a few feet quickly this way. But when my climber needs a lot of slack to clip quickly - I take my hand off the brake - BRIEFLY. More importantly, my thumb is only on the cam for the half second in which I am yanking rope out. I am open minded to there being a better way - but lets not claim this method caused this accident. The only way a climber is decking from 50 feet is if you death grip the cam."

That thread is scarily full of incompetence that puts rockclimbing.com to shame. I don't want to go climbing at red river.

"Lets not make this personal, but I do want to learn from this. I have never seen anybody use the technique shown here by Petzl. I'll give it a try tomorrow at the gym.

Right or wrong - most everybody using a gri-gri takes their hand off the brake to feed slack. I can use a gri-gri just like an ATC to slowly feed out rope. I can also loop a few feet of rope and hold the cam with my thumb while keeping my index fingers on the rope - I can feed a few feet quickly this way. But when my climber needs a lot of slack to clip quickly - I take my hand off the brake - BRIEFLY. More importantly, my thumb is only on the cam for the half second in which I am yanking rope out. I am open minded to there being a better way - but lets not claim this method caused this accident. The only way a climber is decking from 50 feet is if you death grip the cam."

I'm going to guess that, since you are shocked by that statement, you don't use a grigri much, if at all, right?